They started chirping yelling and singing at about six am. Not acceptable lol. So I put my head in and told them to shush and be ashamed of being so naughty (in Italian it sounds better). In one minute they were back to silent.
I am absolutely amazed, my absence must have been beneficial!

Ohhhhhhhh Barbara your nuts!
Always so cheerful lovely reading your post... ty...

Lol Jan yes I know I am pretty crazy But I swear it worked!!!

Wow that's great! Your right! It sounds really good in Italian (I used a translator lol)

Maybe they have an irrational fear of Italians.

Nothing works on my birds. I tell Jaid it's nap time like a super sweet mother and he will sass me. After about 10 minutes it's just "Jaid, shut up!" from there.

Or maybe they looked out the window and saw a hawk, and HIS presence was beneficial.

That's a possibility LOL

When my guys see a hawk at a distance, they become very still and quiet and make these tiny little "urk" noises at each other to tell each other there's a predator out there. If the hawk flies right past the window (which happens a lot) they freak out and there's a whirlwind of cockatiels flying around the room.

The hawks usually don't pay any attention to the cockatiels, although once in a while one will land on the fence and stare into the room. They're mostly interested in the backyard, which has drinkable water and a lot of wild doves and quail that they can actually try to catch.

My birds do that too! I never knew what it meant. That's so cute.

I learned about it from watching "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill". Those birds were feral cherry-headed conures who did the same thing, and Mark Bittner (the guy who became their unofficial caretaker) figured out that whenever they did this, there was a hawk flying somewhere overhead. Sometimes he had a really hard time spotting it, but if he looked hard enough he would always find a hawk.